A woman fled her blazing home in Portadown, Co Armagh, yesterday morning after an arson attack. The woman's partner, a well-known loyalist, blamed the Loyalist Volunteer Force, but in a statement last night the LVF in Portadown denied involvement.
The LVF statement warned another well-known Portadown loyalist to leave the area.
Ms Muriel Richardson, who was treated in hospital for smoke inhalation, appealed to the attackers to meet her and explain why they did it.
Ms Richardson, from Westland Road in the Corcrain estate, said she woke up about 3.40 a.m. and went downstairs for a drink. "The living room and kitchen were in flames. I ran back up the stairs. Why I ran up I don't know. I fell back down the stairs and crawled to the door and saw the living room and kitchen in flames. The child next door saw the white car and four men dressed in black."
It is the second time the house has been targeted this summer. Ms Richardson's partner, Mr R.J. Kerr, who describes himself as a prominent loyalist, claimed he was targeted because he speaks out against the LVF.
Mr Kerr said he had been out yesterday, returning around 4 a.m. "I was attacked because at the present time now in the mid-Ulster, Portadown area, an organisation, if you could call them that, the LVF, are threatening, intimidating, extorting the loyalist people of mid-Ulster.
"I have friends in the Ulster Volunteer Force and they, like myself in this area, do not like drugs."
He said: "They attacked my house on July 10th, They arrived about 2.20 in the morning. When I got up to confront them they ran out but they fired a shot up the stairs."
Mr Kerr said following that incident the head of the LVF in the area and the head of the UVF met and Mr Kerr's attackers later apologised.
This latest attack follows an incident on Wednesday when 30 men, said to be from the UVF, smashed up the Golden Hind bar in the nearby Edgarstown area before setting it alight.
Last year, following the murder of a Lurgan taxi-driver, Michael McGoldrick, the UVF dismissed a number of its members, who went on to form the LVF.